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This is a behemoth of a letter and I sincerely apologise. I've tried to detail the characters and the dynamics of the relationships we love, however, pretty much the core thing is that you don't stress about this assignment. Work it out as you can, and I will be delighted that you write something for me!
Wanted:
1. "working together" scenarios, where they're doing what they do, and relating/falling in love while doing it.
2. Emotionally closed-up women (stoics, possibly ambitious), and guys who don't need them to be 'girly', who have the personal strength to give back to them.
3. Friends to lovers, perhaps a little moment, perhaps something bigger or more unexpected.
4. Slice of life stories - little bits showing the progression of their relationship. (Relationship Development)
5. Established relationships where negotiation and compromise is required.
6. Emotional angst in the guys (just a little, believably done).
7. Guys being emotionally open, doing the emotional labour in a relationship to keep it going.
Amenable to:
1. Smut, particliarly relationship negotiation and boundaries in bed and out of it.
2. Fusion AUs into other universes.
Do Not Want:
1. Babyfic
2. Cheating/infidelity
3. Love Triangles.
4. Situations that could be resolved by the art of communication.
5. Non-con, dub-con, rape.
6. Women who need rescuing (sometimes they may, but they should be capable of doing something towards their own solution).
In this letter, I'm focusing mostly on the characters, their relationship, and what I like about them because that's probably the best way for you to work out what I see in them and how to write them.
MCU
Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
My OTP for MCU and sadly underappreciated.
Maria Hill is a character that I dearly want to see more of in a positive way in the MCU, and I was extremely pissed off that they didn't bother putting her in Civil War - the movie needed a dose of 'pure humanity' - someone who wants the best for Earth but also understands the Avengers (as neither General Ross or John-Watson-actor-guy did) and who's in a position to kick everyone around - Tony and Steve and all the Avengers - as Sharon Carter simply isn't.
Steve Rogers is a hero whom Maria Hill can't afford. That's the bottom line of it; and that's part of the attraction. How does a strong, capable woman who rose to be Fury's 2IC in a hypermasculine, still-extremely sexualised and sexist world (the female darling of SHIELD is still the sexy, capable Natasha Romanoff - remember Grant Ward's slam in Season 1 Agents of SHIELD?) manage to be in a relationship with America's Hero?
I see this relationship as negotiation, a willingness to learn, and hard work, but totally worth it. I love that they're both very work-oriented people, possibly to the point where someone else has to drag them out of the job - and sometimes that someone else is each other. I love the idea that she's his type, and he's mature enough to take her preoccupation with work as part of her, and not a slight against his masculinity. A superhero who's the presentation of everything hypermasculine but a decent guy at heart, paired with a woman who's the Hillary Clinton of the Marvel Unierse? Yes, please!
Write anything with a happy/hopeful ending for these two, but I'd like them to actually be together or get together in the course of the story, not just be "romantic friends" by the end of it, please.
Black Jewels Universe
Chaosti/Gabrielle
I feel like we got cheated of a lot of this relationship in the books. We see a fair bit of Chaosti as a dangerous, aggressive powerful Warlord Prince, particularly in the later books (Tangled Webs I think, and Twilight's Dawn) but he does get overshadowed by Khardeen, who has charming-and-friendly down pat. And Gabrielle as a Black Widow Healer Queen who can spend all day healing and then still hold down an Opal Jewelled Warlord Prince Unicorn? Hoo boy! She got overshadowed by Karla *kiss kiss*, Morghann, and obvs Jaenelle, but I'd love to see more about her.
Bishop elides over their relationship in a few sentences in Heir to the Shadows: the boys all make the offerings to the Darkness and come away with dark Jewels, and they woo their chosen witch and win her. Huzzah, let's get on to Jaenelle kicking the Dark Council's ass.
GIVE ME THIS STORY FOR CHAOSTI/GABRIELLE. Like I noted, I'm a sucker for the emotionally aware/emotionally mature male who have to do the emotional labour to get the relationship working, and while we don't see a lot of Gabrielle, I can see her as a young witch who is quite happy with a childhood friend who perhaps thinks of her a little proprietarily, but he's a Warlord Prince and she's his Queen so that's not unexpected...until it turns sensual.
While the rut is a convenient concept for bringing two characters together, I'd rather it not be used - unless it's Gabrielle trying to deal with a Chaosti who doesn't want to have sex with her (maybe she still hasn't had her Virgin Night and a rut is not the place to be dealing with that) and they have to find another outlet for her.
What about the Dea al Mon? They're considered the most dangerous race in Kaeleer, and Chaosti certainly shows why in his fight against Falonar in Twilight's Dawn, but I'd love to see this in Gabrielle. There are hints of it in Surreal (who's half-Dea al Mon) and in Titian (for the little we see of her), but how about a full-blown Dea al Mon Queen in power?
No fusion AUs for this one, please - keep them in-canon.
Thera/Blaed
As the secondary (background) pairing to Lia/Jared in The Invisible Ring, these two get a sketched outline of their relationship, but I'd love to see it explored further.
So, we have two ex-slaves, sexually and emotionally damaged, dealing with each other. What kind of missteps do they make? How much of the roof do they need to repair once they've blown it off? Finally, what happens when you have freedom and you're learning how to deal with it?
Thera's snarky snappishness is one of the best things about her - and yes, part of it is a defense mechanism, but I dare say a large part of it is personality as well. She's been through a lot in her life, and now she's going to be apprenticed to a Dena Nehele Black Widow to learn the Hourglass Craft - be reunited with her aunt and her aunt's lover and his Black Widow sister who taught her. That's a lot to encompass in a matter of a month.
In contrast, Blaed seems a lot more solid, although there'd have to be some serious issues underneath. Also, according to the books, he hadn't yet made the Offering to the Darkness. (I think? I don't have the books where I am right now.) So at some point he's going to acquire a darker Jewel than the Purple Dusk he currently wears, and then...? How does the balance of his relationship change when Thera finds herself facing a Warlord Prince who's her equal in power, if not even more powerful? (Purple Dusk can descend to Sapphire, which is darker than the Green, I believe.)
What if you want to write about what happens when Thera sees Dena Nehele fall? Or some other non-canon event where a Black Widow and a Warlord Prince might be needed to fix something that's going wrong in the Territory? I'm good with that, too!
Harry Potter
Harry/Luna
I was a little disappointed as when JKR hooked Harry up with Ginny; I was sincerely hoping for Harry/Luna because it seemed to me that, while Harry desires to be 'normal' and 'ordinary', that's never going to happen. He's been marked by Voldemort, and so he's always going to be different, even after the Battle of Hogwarts. So I was looking forward to Luna showing him how to be a little bit different, how to accept himself and that people are going to look at him as something else, and how to deal with being one step out of the world, while he anchors her a little more into reality, while allowing her to retain her whimsicality and uncomplicated simplicity.
This one, I don't mind if you rewrite the books so Harry ends up with Luna, somehow, or if he marries Luna rather than Ginny, or even if Ginny dies and Harry ends up developing a relationship with Luna when they're both adults and once-married. If you go the 'Ginny dies and Harry remarries' route, please avoid the tropes of the He Never Really Loved His First Wife and the It Was An Unhappy Marriage kind of thing. One can love second partners as much as former ones when something happens to the former.
Regarding Luna's characterisation: there's a fine, fine linebetween pleasure and pain between her worldview and a general 'carefree weirdness'. It's not just that Luna's a free spirit, she really does believe a lot of alternative things, but still manages to anchor herself in a sense of right and wrong. I think that's important when looking at her character.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Faith/Wesley
This pairing is a very old one for me, and one which - again - has never been particularly popular. It hit me hard in the feels when I watched the episodes of Season Four of Angel where they were working together. The thing that attracts me to these two is pretty much their brokenness.
Even from the start, they weren't whole. He was the Watcher that nobody wanted, she was the excess Slayer who was looking for all the things that Buffy had and she didn't. They struck out at each other, young and insecure, and each had to go back through their own Valley of the Shadow of Darkness to grow up and find who they were before they could meet as anything close to equals. (Five by Five in S1 Angel was a nice example of both of them in growing-up mode, while still battling their demons, of which each other was a part.)
Basically, they're very damaged - in some ways, it was the other one causing the damage! Yet I'd love to see them working out how to live with each other and love. They don't have to be perfect, their relationship doesn't have to be perfect, they just have to make it work - a little bit of everything making a doable whole. And, yes, slayage and sex works.
I really really really wanted Faith back in Season 5, working with the Fang Gang at W&H but it was not to be, and neither was the Faith the Vampire Slayer spinoff, alas. If you'd like to write something along either of those lines, I am very good with that.
Rogue One: A Star Wars story
Cassian/Jyn
Finally, this pairing. I came to the fandom 'late' - ie. after the first rush-and-flush. Although I guess that's still going? There seem to be a variety of interpretations for this pairing, so I'm going to detail the characterisations and interactions that I'd most like to see, I guess; that would make it easiest for you.
Jyn, I see as very angry, not so self-controlled. She's been an Imperial prisoner (a nobody in a work gang), she has bad memories of the Empire taking her family from her, she's been deserted, she's trained herself not to look up at the sky and even imagine anything more than survival. And then she discovers that her father is alive, her father still thinks of her, her father wants her to rebel. And so she rebels - only the Rebellion isn't willing to take the risk for this kind of rebellion! So, yeah, she's frustrated and angry, and probably all the more because she was coming to like Cassian and then it turns out he was willing to shoot her father under orders. Of course, he's also willing to subvert his superiors to get her the people she needs to carry out her mission - and at this point, it's her mission, not his; even his fall in the data centre doesn't stop her - but he comes back for her, one last time.
Cassian I see as self-contained, also not so self-controlled. His best friend is a droid. He's willing to kill a questionable ally to survive. And he's been twenty-ish years in the Rebellion, doing terrible things because it's for 'the cause'. It's done his head in, in so many ways - all the twists, all the turns. He's a spy to his core - caution and care and calculating risk. And then Jyn presents him with a dilemma - a woman who will break her cover to rescue a child to whom she owes nothing. And he makes a choice. Again and again, he makes a choice - to cover her, to back her up, to keep her safe - and his internal compass shifts. The needle is no longer swinging once he starts canvassing for operatives to carry out the Scarif mission: it's settled firmly on Jyn Erso.
These two I see as circling, learning how to deal with each other in the long-term; there's attraction there, and fascination, and yes, probably some resentment. Commonality in that their childhoods were disrupted by the Empire, but difference in that Cassian kept making a choice to rebel, and Jyn more or less withdrew (although I imagine she was fighting until she was sixteen). I would see both of them as self-possessed, not affectionate in public, but intimate in ways that reflect who they are - a touch, a smile, a look. Restrained in physicality, but not restrained in affection - once they've decided, it's all over, they just have to work out how to make it work.
I don't mind an Everyone Lives universe, or an Someone Lives Not Everyone Dies universe. I'd rather not have any rewrites of canon, or missing scenes in which they kiss. Alternate Universes are good, but you might like to check out my thoughts on Fusion AUs for a guide on how I see Fusions working (or not working).
May the force be with you!
--
I know this is a lot to process! Don't feel that you absolutely must meet every last point - we both love these pairings (well, I love them, and I hope that you feel more than mild tolerance for them) so write something that makes you enthusiastic and I'll be glad to get it.
Thank you so much, dear author!
Wanted:
1. "working together" scenarios, where they're doing what they do, and relating/falling in love while doing it.
2. Emotionally closed-up women (stoics, possibly ambitious), and guys who don't need them to be 'girly', who have the personal strength to give back to them.
3. Friends to lovers, perhaps a little moment, perhaps something bigger or more unexpected.
4. Slice of life stories - little bits showing the progression of their relationship. (Relationship Development)
5. Established relationships where negotiation and compromise is required.
6. Emotional angst in the guys (just a little, believably done).
7. Guys being emotionally open, doing the emotional labour in a relationship to keep it going.
Amenable to:
1. Smut, particliarly relationship negotiation and boundaries in bed and out of it.
2. Fusion AUs into other universes.
Do Not Want:
1. Babyfic
2. Cheating/infidelity
3. Love Triangles.
4. Situations that could be resolved by the art of communication.
5. Non-con, dub-con, rape.
6. Women who need rescuing (sometimes they may, but they should be capable of doing something towards their own solution).
In this letter, I'm focusing mostly on the characters, their relationship, and what I like about them because that's probably the best way for you to work out what I see in them and how to write them.
MCU
Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
My OTP for MCU and sadly underappreciated.
Maria Hill is a character that I dearly want to see more of in a positive way in the MCU, and I was extremely pissed off that they didn't bother putting her in Civil War - the movie needed a dose of 'pure humanity' - someone who wants the best for Earth but also understands the Avengers (as neither General Ross or John-Watson-actor-guy did) and who's in a position to kick everyone around - Tony and Steve and all the Avengers - as Sharon Carter simply isn't.
Steve Rogers is a hero whom Maria Hill can't afford. That's the bottom line of it; and that's part of the attraction. How does a strong, capable woman who rose to be Fury's 2IC in a hypermasculine, still-extremely sexualised and sexist world (the female darling of SHIELD is still the sexy, capable Natasha Romanoff - remember Grant Ward's slam in Season 1 Agents of SHIELD?) manage to be in a relationship with America's Hero?
I see this relationship as negotiation, a willingness to learn, and hard work, but totally worth it. I love that they're both very work-oriented people, possibly to the point where someone else has to drag them out of the job - and sometimes that someone else is each other. I love the idea that she's his type, and he's mature enough to take her preoccupation with work as part of her, and not a slight against his masculinity. A superhero who's the presentation of everything hypermasculine but a decent guy at heart, paired with a woman who's the Hillary Clinton of the Marvel Unierse? Yes, please!
Write anything with a happy/hopeful ending for these two, but I'd like them to actually be together or get together in the course of the story, not just be "romantic friends" by the end of it, please.
Black Jewels Universe
Chaosti/Gabrielle
I feel like we got cheated of a lot of this relationship in the books. We see a fair bit of Chaosti as a dangerous, aggressive powerful Warlord Prince, particularly in the later books (Tangled Webs I think, and Twilight's Dawn) but he does get overshadowed by Khardeen, who has charming-and-friendly down pat. And Gabrielle as a Black Widow Healer Queen who can spend all day healing and then still hold down an Opal Jewelled Warlord Prince Unicorn? Hoo boy! She got overshadowed by Karla *kiss kiss*, Morghann, and obvs Jaenelle, but I'd love to see more about her.
Bishop elides over their relationship in a few sentences in Heir to the Shadows: the boys all make the offerings to the Darkness and come away with dark Jewels, and they woo their chosen witch and win her. Huzzah, let's get on to Jaenelle kicking the Dark Council's ass.
GIVE ME THIS STORY FOR CHAOSTI/GABRIELLE. Like I noted, I'm a sucker for the emotionally aware/emotionally mature male who have to do the emotional labour to get the relationship working, and while we don't see a lot of Gabrielle, I can see her as a young witch who is quite happy with a childhood friend who perhaps thinks of her a little proprietarily, but he's a Warlord Prince and she's his Queen so that's not unexpected...until it turns sensual.
While the rut is a convenient concept for bringing two characters together, I'd rather it not be used - unless it's Gabrielle trying to deal with a Chaosti who doesn't want to have sex with her (maybe she still hasn't had her Virgin Night and a rut is not the place to be dealing with that) and they have to find another outlet for her.
What about the Dea al Mon? They're considered the most dangerous race in Kaeleer, and Chaosti certainly shows why in his fight against Falonar in Twilight's Dawn, but I'd love to see this in Gabrielle. There are hints of it in Surreal (who's half-Dea al Mon) and in Titian (for the little we see of her), but how about a full-blown Dea al Mon Queen in power?
No fusion AUs for this one, please - keep them in-canon.
Thera/Blaed
As the secondary (background) pairing to Lia/Jared in The Invisible Ring, these two get a sketched outline of their relationship, but I'd love to see it explored further.
So, we have two ex-slaves, sexually and emotionally damaged, dealing with each other. What kind of missteps do they make? How much of the roof do they need to repair once they've blown it off? Finally, what happens when you have freedom and you're learning how to deal with it?
Thera's snarky snappishness is one of the best things about her - and yes, part of it is a defense mechanism, but I dare say a large part of it is personality as well. She's been through a lot in her life, and now she's going to be apprenticed to a Dena Nehele Black Widow to learn the Hourglass Craft - be reunited with her aunt and her aunt's lover and his Black Widow sister who taught her. That's a lot to encompass in a matter of a month.
In contrast, Blaed seems a lot more solid, although there'd have to be some serious issues underneath. Also, according to the books, he hadn't yet made the Offering to the Darkness. (I think? I don't have the books where I am right now.) So at some point he's going to acquire a darker Jewel than the Purple Dusk he currently wears, and then...? How does the balance of his relationship change when Thera finds herself facing a Warlord Prince who's her equal in power, if not even more powerful? (Purple Dusk can descend to Sapphire, which is darker than the Green, I believe.)
What if you want to write about what happens when Thera sees Dena Nehele fall? Or some other non-canon event where a Black Widow and a Warlord Prince might be needed to fix something that's going wrong in the Territory? I'm good with that, too!
Harry Potter
Harry/Luna
I was a little disappointed as when JKR hooked Harry up with Ginny; I was sincerely hoping for Harry/Luna because it seemed to me that, while Harry desires to be 'normal' and 'ordinary', that's never going to happen. He's been marked by Voldemort, and so he's always going to be different, even after the Battle of Hogwarts. So I was looking forward to Luna showing him how to be a little bit different, how to accept himself and that people are going to look at him as something else, and how to deal with being one step out of the world, while he anchors her a little more into reality, while allowing her to retain her whimsicality and uncomplicated simplicity.
This one, I don't mind if you rewrite the books so Harry ends up with Luna, somehow, or if he marries Luna rather than Ginny, or even if Ginny dies and Harry ends up developing a relationship with Luna when they're both adults and once-married. If you go the 'Ginny dies and Harry remarries' route, please avoid the tropes of the He Never Really Loved His First Wife and the It Was An Unhappy Marriage kind of thing. One can love second partners as much as former ones when something happens to the former.
Regarding Luna's characterisation: there's a fine, fine line
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Faith/Wesley
This pairing is a very old one for me, and one which - again - has never been particularly popular. It hit me hard in the feels when I watched the episodes of Season Four of Angel where they were working together. The thing that attracts me to these two is pretty much their brokenness.
Even from the start, they weren't whole. He was the Watcher that nobody wanted, she was the excess Slayer who was looking for all the things that Buffy had and she didn't. They struck out at each other, young and insecure, and each had to go back through their own Valley of the Shadow of Darkness to grow up and find who they were before they could meet as anything close to equals. (Five by Five in S1 Angel was a nice example of both of them in growing-up mode, while still battling their demons, of which each other was a part.)
Basically, they're very damaged - in some ways, it was the other one causing the damage! Yet I'd love to see them working out how to live with each other and love. They don't have to be perfect, their relationship doesn't have to be perfect, they just have to make it work - a little bit of everything making a doable whole. And, yes, slayage and sex works.
I really really really wanted Faith back in Season 5, working with the Fang Gang at W&H but it was not to be, and neither was the Faith the Vampire Slayer spinoff, alas. If you'd like to write something along either of those lines, I am very good with that.
Rogue One: A Star Wars story
Cassian/Jyn
Finally, this pairing. I came to the fandom 'late' - ie. after the first rush-and-flush. Although I guess that's still going? There seem to be a variety of interpretations for this pairing, so I'm going to detail the characterisations and interactions that I'd most like to see, I guess; that would make it easiest for you.
Jyn, I see as very angry, not so self-controlled. She's been an Imperial prisoner (a nobody in a work gang), she has bad memories of the Empire taking her family from her, she's been deserted, she's trained herself not to look up at the sky and even imagine anything more than survival. And then she discovers that her father is alive, her father still thinks of her, her father wants her to rebel. And so she rebels - only the Rebellion isn't willing to take the risk for this kind of rebellion! So, yeah, she's frustrated and angry, and probably all the more because she was coming to like Cassian and then it turns out he was willing to shoot her father under orders. Of course, he's also willing to subvert his superiors to get her the people she needs to carry out her mission - and at this point, it's her mission, not his; even his fall in the data centre doesn't stop her - but he comes back for her, one last time.
Cassian I see as self-contained, also not so self-controlled. His best friend is a droid. He's willing to kill a questionable ally to survive. And he's been twenty-ish years in the Rebellion, doing terrible things because it's for 'the cause'. It's done his head in, in so many ways - all the twists, all the turns. He's a spy to his core - caution and care and calculating risk. And then Jyn presents him with a dilemma - a woman who will break her cover to rescue a child to whom she owes nothing. And he makes a choice. Again and again, he makes a choice - to cover her, to back her up, to keep her safe - and his internal compass shifts. The needle is no longer swinging once he starts canvassing for operatives to carry out the Scarif mission: it's settled firmly on Jyn Erso.
These two I see as circling, learning how to deal with each other in the long-term; there's attraction there, and fascination, and yes, probably some resentment. Commonality in that their childhoods were disrupted by the Empire, but difference in that Cassian kept making a choice to rebel, and Jyn more or less withdrew (although I imagine she was fighting until she was sixteen). I would see both of them as self-possessed, not affectionate in public, but intimate in ways that reflect who they are - a touch, a smile, a look. Restrained in physicality, but not restrained in affection - once they've decided, it's all over, they just have to work out how to make it work.
I don't mind an Everyone Lives universe, or an Someone Lives Not Everyone Dies universe. I'd rather not have any rewrites of canon, or missing scenes in which they kiss. Alternate Universes are good, but you might like to check out my thoughts on Fusion AUs for a guide on how I see Fusions working (or not working).
May the force be with you!
--
I know this is a lot to process! Don't feel that you absolutely must meet every last point - we both love these pairings (well, I love them, and I hope that you feel more than mild tolerance for them) so write something that makes you enthusiastic and I'll be glad to get it.
Thank you so much, dear author!
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